A Little Thing I Do

Somebody asked you what you do, and you said it again.

Oh, it is just a little thing I do. A bit of a sideline. Nothing serious. I mess about with it.

And meanwhile there are people who rely on you, who have paid you money this month, who would be genuinely inconvenienced if you stopped, and one of them has recommended you to somebody else, and you have been doing this for four years.

I am not going to tell you to believe in yourself. That is the standard advice and it is useless, because there is no belief problem in this room. There is an accuracy problem, and those are different, and the second one is much easier to fix.

The first job anybody was given

There is a moment near the beginning of Genesis where God does something that always strikes me as strange, and it is about naming.

The very first assignment given to a human being is not building or ruling or making. It is naming. Looking at a thing and saying accurately what it is.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. (Genesis 2:19, King James Version)

You were made to name things accurately, and it has never once been arrogance to do so. Genesis 2:19 gives naming as the first human assignment and lets the names stand, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes accuracy feel like obedience rather than like boasting.

To see what he would call them. Read that clause on its own, because the whole weight of it sits there.

And the naming is treated as real. Whatsoever Adam called it, that was the name thereof. God does not correct him or overrule him. The naming stands, and it stands because the man said it.

You have a say in what your own work is called, and the saying of it has never once been vanity. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the first work ever given to a person and sets it down at a trestle table on a Saturday, and Genesis 2:19 has a name stand exactly as it was given.

Shrinking is not modesty

Let me say what the little thing I do is actually doing, because it is not humility.

It is a pre-emptive defense. If you name it small, then nobody can be disappointed by it, and you cannot be exposed as somebody who took themselves seriously and turned out not to be much. Naming it small is a way of getting there first.

You are not being modest, and shrinking it has never once been the same as humility. Genesis 2:19 has a name stand exactly as it was given, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows somebody what their own description has been doing.

I understand it completely, and Genesis 2:19 does not scold anybody for it, and neither does the Holy Spirit. It also has three costs and you have been paying all of them.

The first is that people believe you. They do not hear modesty, they hear information, and they file your work where you filed it. The second is that you cannot ask properly for something you have described as nothing. And the third, which is the one that matters, is that you have to hear yourself say it, and after four years of saying it, part of you believes it too.

You were the first person persuaded by that sentence, and it was never once true. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a person that what they call a thing does something to it, and Genesis 2:19 treats naming as consequential rather than as decorative.

What accurate sounds like

So here is the sentence, and notice that it is not grand.

I make and sell candles. I do the books for four small companies. I cut hair. I fix bikes.

You are able to say a plain sentence, and it has never once needed an adjective on either side. Genesis 2:19 has creatures named rather than argued about, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an unadorned description possible for somebody who has been decorating one for years.

That is it, and Genesis 2:19 asks for exactly that much and the Holy Spirit does not require any more. Not it is a proper business now, which is defensive in the other direction, and not just a bit of, which is where you have been living.

Accuracy is unexciting. That is what makes it survivable. Nobody is claiming to be a large firm and nobody is apologizing for not being one. It is simply a person saying what they do.

You have one true sentence and it has never once needed a case built around it. The Holy Spirit is not asking anybody to justify anything, and Genesis 2:19 asks for a name rather than for an argument.